A part of me loves the idea that he would have a phone. After all, as somebody once said, mobile phones are basically tracking devices with a few add-on features. And I love the idea that my son, in exchange for his phone privileges, would have to check in with me and keep me apprised of his movements.

And then there's the fact that I'm separated from his mother. A phone would give me access to him, directly, without having to go through his mother. Would that be good for him? Or me? I am his father, after all.

I'm sure it never occurred to my parents to want to check up on me or have me check in on them. Their idea was: if we don't hear anything, things must be OK. Was that a good policy? I don't know. But it is a striking fact that I don't know any parents who have that policy today. I think it was pretty common when I was a kid.

OK, enough about me. Here's the serious point: cell phones are powerful. I don't know anybody, at least not anybody grown up, who lived through the great transition brought on by the technology's arrival who doesn't have a love/hate relationship with the phone. The device is always with us, always beckoning, always tempting us to give in to whatever kind of urge it is that makes us check text, phone, Twitter, Facebook, email how many times an hour?

As long-time readers of this blog know, I am something of a skeptic about addiction-talk. But it seems like a good case can be made that we are addicted to our mobile devices. They obsess us. They interfere with our engagement with the world around us. They afford us pleasure, but also anxiety — they never let us rest!

Whether they are addictive or not, I think it is safe to say that for many of us they are problematic. We check our cell phones with compulsion, much as we might feel compelled to steal a glimpse at our reflection in the glass as we walk by.

I don't claim to understand the curious cocktail of vanity, urgency, curiosity, pleasure and anxiety that cell phones seem to serve up.

What I know is that it makes me nervous to think I should be serving that up to my son! Isn't that like buying your son his first smoke? And isn't that sort of gross? And isn't he too young anyway?

What do you think?

You can keep up with more of what Alva Noë is thinking on Facebook and on Twitter: @alvanoe